Chapter Text
At precisely 7am Dream arrives at the front door of Hob’s flat. He has clothed himself in the dark jeans and grey T-shirt he is accustomed to wearing on such visits, but he has been careful to include socks and shoes rather than go barefoot. (It was something he had reminded himself to do more than once. True, he could have borrowed a pair of Hob’s shoes, but the idea that he could not simply manifest his own has been lurking at the back of his head, urging him to be cautious.)
At 7am and approximately two seconds, he rings the doorbell. His first act as a human is to ring Hob’s doorbell; and that makes him smile not only for the obvious reason but because of Hob’s continued display of minor annoyance that he typically arrives without signal.
But today he has announced himself in the proper human way.
Hob is not as punctual. Dream is made to wait more than three minutes, before the door opens to reveal his friend, still clothed in pyjamas.
Dream fights the oddly-insistent urge to shift on his toes. “Are you still available today?” In truth, if Hob is not, he does not know how he will pass these next twenty-four hours. His sister had spoken, whimsically, about throwing herself into the eddies of the human world, allowing herself to be led wherever they took her— he himself is not one for such spontaneity.
But Hob grins. “Are you joking? I’ve had this on the calendar since the moment you said. I just figured”— he stifles a yawn— “just figured you wanted the full and complete experience. And, in my experience, this is what 7am looks like.”
7:04am, Dream corrects, after a glance at his watch. (Death’s warning that he will not have his typical perception of time had prompted him to add this accessory, and he is glad of it now.)
Hob has led him inside, and is locking the door behind him. Early morning sunlight fills the living room, a pleasant contrast to the dim hallway, and Dream takes in his friend’s appearance more fully: his hair is rumpled, and there is stubble on his jaw. Perhaps noting the inspection, Hob laughs muzzily.
“Mm. ‘m always useless in the mornings. Or at least, during summer hols, I’m useless in the mornings. You look the same? I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s not like you don’t look human normally. Um. Since you’re, mm, can I hug you hello?”
He should allow this, should he not? Though he will quite definitively not be throwing himself into any eddies today, the bargain he made with himself was to cooperate with whatever Hob deemed most suitable.
Dream nods, and is immediately enveloped in Hob’s embrace. The temperature of his skin tells how recently he emerged from his blankets, and Dream finds himself deeply comforted by the warmth.
“’kay,” Hob says, pulling away, “coffee’s on. I’ll have you know my alarm went off at 6:55 just so I could have a pee and set the coffee going before you got here. I figured you’d be on time.”
Hob leads him into the kitchen: this room, like the rest of Hob’s apartment, is by now quite familiar. Dream has been here on countless occasions since their reunion, slightly less than one year ago. But today he urges himself to look through the perspective of a human— whatever that might entail— and perhaps to notice that which he has not noticed before.
What is there to be noted? He sees crumbs of cat food left scattered on the floor around Winnie’s bowl. Sees a spot on the baseboard where the paint has been scraped. He smells coffee, which is a scent he knows; but it must be said that it is unusually appetizing at the moment.
“Do you know how you take it?”
“Mm?”
“Your coffee, do you know how you take it?”
Dream shakes his head. It seems the most moderate option.
“Okay,” Hob says, and turns aside for a moment. “Which do you like better?”
Hob turns back, proffering two mugs: one a creamy, light brown and one nearly black. Dream takes the latter, and sips it carefully. The liquid is hot— this he expected— but the bitterness comes as a surprise. He must display his displeasure, because Hob laughs, and switches mugs with him.
“Right. Try this.”
Hesitant now, Dream samples this second version. It is lighter and sweeter than the first, and much more to his liking; this must be evident as well.
“Cream and sugar,” Hob notes. “Noted. If human-you ends up having a sweet tooth, just warning you, I won’t let you live it down.” He sips from the darker mug, and winces. Dream is about to offer to switch back when Hob shakes his head and clarifies, “that’s on me, just brushed my teeth. Usually I do coffee first, but you didn’t deserve my morning breath— agh, why does toothpaste do that? Blegh.”
Despite his disapproval, Hob does not stop drinking.
“Okay. Um. So, being human. First thing coffee, next thing, at least as I do, shower.”
Dream contemplates this. “Would you not prefer to be clean before sleeping?”
“Um. Okay, so, it’s bad, I know, it’s indulgent, but I usually take two showers.” Hob smiles sheepishly. “This from a bloke who used to bathe, like, once a year. But. At night it’s because you’ve gotten dirty or sweaty or what-have-you, but in the morning it’s just nice to wake up to. You wanna go first?”
Ah. Dream is also expected to shower, though he is neither dirty nor recently woken.
“You said.” Hob gestures pointedly with his mug. “You said, you wanted the full experience. Twenty-four hours as a human, you said your sister does this every hundred years. Hob Gadling, would you be available to accompany me, you said. And I said, absolutely, still on summer holiday the next few weeks, I would love to play tour guide, and here we are.”
He softens. “You don’t actually have to shower. Obviously. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do today, I’m just offering suggestions.”
“No,” Dream says, nodding slightly. “I will— shower.”
Hob grins.
Leaving their coffees behind, they make their way from the kitchen and down the hall, to a door which is presumably the bathroom. (Despite his familiarity with Hob’s living space, he has never had the need to use this room in particular.)
“Okay,” Hob says, pausing outside. “So. My shower’s a bit finicky. The water pressure’s brilliant. But whoever— whoever did the plumbing. You know how the hot’s meant to be on the left? That’s been standard for ages, well before this place was built— but whoever did the plumbing completed bollixed it, hot’s on the right, so watch for that—”
He babbles on a moment longer, miming clumsily to show the opening of the taps and demonstrate left from right; it is unnecessary, but it makes Dream smile. The man really is out of his element, at this hour.
“Got that?” he finishes.
“I do.”
“Brilliant. I’m gonna have a quick nap while you’re in there.” Hob thumbs towards another door, this one half-opened. “Don’t laugh at me,” he adds, though Dream is doing nothing of the sort. “Oh! C’mere, you need a towel.”
Once again Dream follows him, this time to Hob’s bedroom. Here, heavy curtains block most of the sunlight; still he sees well enough to spot Winnie on Hob’s bed, curled comfortably on a woven throw blanket. She favors them with sleepy blinks as they enter.
“Useless potato,” Hob mutters. “Didn’t even come to say hi to your uncle, so rude. What if he’d been an axe murderer, you wouldn’t protect me at all, would you?”
As Hob goes to his closet, Dream approaches the bed. Winnie stands, stretches, and comes towards him— then stops short. She sniffs him with suspicion, flicks her tail, and jumps to the floor; Hob scoffs lightly as she exits the room.
“She’ll come ‘round. You probably just smell a bit different.”
“Do I?”
“Well, not to me. But to a cat. Here.”
The towel Hob hands him is large, navy, and unexpectedly soft. Dream finds himself rubbing a thumb over it without intending to. Then there is nothing else for it. Hob climbs back into bed and Dream, alone with his thoughts again, makes his way into the bathroom.
And realizes that he does not know how to proceed.
Dreams about showering aren’t very common, and though under normal circumstances he could root through the collective knowledge and find enough to suit his purposes, that knowledge is— more distant, than usual. He can see flashes. Snapshots. But nothing clear enough to give him step-by-step instructions; his reliance, it seems, will be on his own common sense.
A challenge, then.
He places the towel on its rack; removes his clothes; and folds them neatly, since they will be reworn. Then, now that he has the opportunity, he scans himself as he would inspect a new dream. According to Hob— and to Hob’s mirror— his physical appearance is essentially the same as in his default human form. According to Winnie, though, there is at least some perceptible difference. He will ask her about it, when he’s once again able to; but for now, there seems no use in further studying his reflection.
Today he will learn more from participation than from observation, he expects. (This will, in and of itself, be something new.)
Dream turns on the water, according to Hob’s instructions. Once the temperature is to his liking, he steps inside the shower chamber, and pulls the curtain closed behind him. The sensation is briefly surprising— more forceful than the heaviest of rain. It makes it hard for him to focus on anything else, including the bottles and bar of soap that sit on a shelf on the shower wall. Is he meant to use them?
No, certainly that isn’t expected. He is entirely clean; this is merely a ritual for him to observe. Perhaps, then, it should be a purely academic experience. And yet he is slowly becoming aware of something entirely undeniable: the water feels exquisite. His muscles are real flesh, today, flesh that reacts as any flesh would, and under the near-scalding heat he feels the tension leaching from them. In its wake it leaves real, physical comfort. Combined with the susurrus of droplets against tile, the effect is serene, nearly meditative.
It relaxes him in a way that is unexpected and quite frankly unusual.
He stays a while.
The sense of ease follows him, as he exits the shower, dries, and redresses. Back in the bedroom he finds that Hob, as he planned to, has fallen back asleep; he stirs as Dream approaches, and sits up with a grunt.
“My turn? Mm. Right. I won’t be long. Lay down if you like. I just put fresh linens on yesterday so it’s all”— he interrupts himself, with a massive yawn— “it’s all, um, above board.”
Dream finds, with mild surprise, that he does in fact want to lie down in the bed. He resists; the shower was indulgence enough. Instead he goes into the kitchen to fetch his coffee, and then into the living room, where he finds Winnie. It takes a fair few minutes of patient coaxing, but eventually she seems to reacclimate to him, and accepts the offer to be petted. He settles on the sofa. Drinks his coffee, and takes comfort in Winnie’s quiet presence in his lap.
Hob returns from his shower clean-shaven and dressed, and significantly livelier than before. He gets his own coffee, then flops onto the sofa and swings his legs up so that his stocking feet nearly reach to Dream.
“Right, so,” he begins. “I’ve got two lists. One I’ve based on a travel blog, what to do with 24 hours in London, because believe it or not, there are no travel blogs about spending 24 hours as a human. Imagine that!” He pauses, searches Dream’s face for a smile, which Dream produces easily. “Then I’ve got a list of my favorite, like, day-to-day human things. Just, stuff you might not stop to think about, but I’ve tried to stop and think about it. Um. We’ve already done two! Coffee, and a nice hot shower. So, we’re well on our way!
“So next thing, breakfast. I’ve been on a parfait kick, but my 24 hours in London blog said full English, so. We’re having a full English. Then— wait. Would you rather know ahead of time? Or would you rather be surprised?”
Dream, as a rule, does not like surprises.
And, yet.
“Surprise me,” he says; and Hob smiles anew.